Freedom Summer: Justice Revival

1:47:16 Camp Wisdom and Polk. Um this is home. I invite your attention to second Samuel chapter nine verses one through eight. Uh 2 Samuel chapter 9, I'll read for you here in verses 1 through 8. And honor and respect to that 50th birthday. You know, somehow as you get older, the Bible print gets smaller. I don't know if that happened to some of y'all. 2 Samuel 9, verses 1 through 8, and as much as we thank and bring you greetings on behalf of the Wilson household and my mama, and then Wilson's back in Washington, D.C., also on behalf of the Children's Defense Fund, those who serve, advocate for children across this nation, including our dear sister, Dr. Brandy Taylor-Dade, our state director here in Texas, who is here up front. So thank you all for your kindness.

1:48:12 And the New Revised Standard Version of the text reads this way on 2 Samuel 9, verses 1 through 8. David asks, is there anyone left of the house of Saul to whom I may show kindness for Jonathan's sake? Now there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba and he was summoned to David. The king said to him, are you Ziba? And he said, at your service. The king said, is there anyone remaining of the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God? Ziba said to the king, there remains a son of Jonathan. He's crippled in his feet. The king said to him, where is he? Ziba said to Ziba said to the king he is in the house of Mekir son of Emiel at Lodabar then king David sent and brought him from the house of Mekir son of Emiel at Lodabar Mephibosheth son of Jonathan son of Saul came to David and fell on his face and did obeisance David said Mephibosheth he answered I am your servant David said to him do not be afraid for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan.

1:49:23 I will restore to you all the land of your grandfather Saul and you yourself shall eat at my table always. He did obeisance and said, what is your servant that you should look upon a dead dog such as I? So reads the word of the Lord. I do believe it to be true. The grass withers, the flower thereof shall fade away, but the word of our Lord shall last forever. You may be seated even in the presence of the Lord But for the time that is, I'd like to speak for a few minutes on the topic, just a request. Be kind. Be kind.

1:50:02 Earlier today, I was talking to a friend of mine who went to school with me. Before Dr. Recruiter, there was a law, before there was a Townview, there was a Magnet Center for Government Law and Law Enforcement on South Irving. I date myself just a little bit. We called it Law Magnet. Most people didn't call it the Magnet Center for Government Law and Law Enforcement, but I sat there through Robert Giesler as the principal, and so I came to have a special regard for my own formation in that place. I talked to my friend who I went to Law Magnet with who also lived on Redbird Lane, and we were musing about some things that we experienced there in that time in the early 90s, Deshaun Janik, that we hadn't experienced since, and that if we tried to tell our children about these things, if I had to tell my son who I just dropped off as Xavier, if I had to tell my son who's in his final year, I say final. he says fourth I hope we're both right in his final year at Howard University, if I talked to him about these things, he'd look at me like I was crazy. If I talked to him about having a call over a young lady's house and talk to her mama first or her daddy, because there was one phone in the house and you had to ask, may I speak to and then have somebody walk the phone or make it through that parent who was a gatekeeper for that daughter on the other side, he'd look at me like I was crazy.

1:51:25 If I told him that that young lady, in order to get some privacy, would have to take the phone and stretch the cord to try to go into the bathroom that was in the hallway because the phone also was in the hallway, he'd look at me like I was crazy. If I had to tell him that if he wanted to know what was playing at the movie theater around from the house, he'd have to pick up the phone and call a number. Hello, this is a movie phone. and he would have to listen to the recording of what was playing at the movie theater to figure out what was how he'd look at me like I was crazy and if I told him that there was no Netflix there was no Amazon Prime and if he wanted to watch a movie especially on a Friday night like this y'all wouldn't even be at Friendship West y'all wouldn't be at that old A-line church the first Friendship West that I came into the first church I ever stood in line to come into standing in line to come to church. The old A-frame church. We're talking about history here, 50 years, right?

1:52:19 But around the corner from that church of Ken Whizzer and Polk, there was this place that had a blue sign with yellow letters. And on a Friday night, if you wasn't so cheap that you would just owe on Tuesdays, you would go to a place where you would rent a movie on a VHS and you would hope that the last person who rented that movie had followed the instructions and they would be kind and please rewind. If I told these boys about these things, they think I was making them up. I needed to bring them here to service. I had to play this back for them to hear that there are people who said amen when I said that you'd have to call and talk to that young lady's father before you got her on the phone. There are people who said hallelujah because they remember that place in Camp Wisdom and Polk in the little shopping center with a blue sign with the yellow letters that was blockbuster. They they would remember these things and, and they would understand because, uh, you have given witness, not because they have experienced it for themselves. None of those boys that I dropped off at college would understand and neither would the boy who's left at home. I got one 16 year old named Mason. He's still at the house. Mason's 16 year old. Now his brothers are gone. He's filling the face, the place with all his swag. Mason had his first day of school this week. I really enjoy seeing Mason grow into his own as the oldest in the house and with these three boys who at one point I thought this would be the end of the journey for us before we had the blessing of this baby girl with these three boys I'm experiencing things that feel like endings taking one off to school getting ready for another's commencement which I declare in the name of the Lord what happened in May Please.

1:54:01 preparing for another to get into his basketball season and now he's trying out for the varsity team. These feel like endings but since we are doing double duty today while I've been here in Dallas my home girl my co-worker my chief strategy officer by the name of Brittany Packnack Cunningham she was in that march on Washington and while I'm experiencing endings, Brittany is experiencing beginnings. So while I'm trying to hold tight to Mason, she's got two little boys named Manny and Moses. Manny and Moses are navigating here in the last couple of weeks, their first days of school. Manny and Moses had one had his first school pictures this week. It's a new beginning and another went to a brand new school. They are experiencing those things that are at the beginning and I feel so inspired by uh showing her the long journey but I also feel inspired by looking back at their journey I lean back in because there's something about black boy joy that gives me delight and I'm I am I am in wonder in splendor and thinking about black boy joy as I come back here to Oak Cliff that's my hood that's this is this is this is the place where I experience black boy joy and so when I think about Mason and I think about Manny and I think about Moses and I think about the world that I want for them I'm also reminded of a five-year-old boy by the name of Mephibosheth this five-year-old boy by the name of Mephibosheth who we meet in the text uh we learn about him from the lens of from the lens of David here but if you uh rewind the text a little bit and go back to the fourth chapter, you learn more about Mephibosheth for himself.

1:55:49 Mephibosheth was a five years old when a grown up conflict, a war where grown folk were fighting over political power, took the life of his grandfather by the name of Saul and took the life of his father by the name of Jonathan. Say that again, grown up conflict over political territory and who was in charge left five year old Mephibosheth without his father. If that wasn't enough, there was, of course, still people around who wanted to care for Mephibosheth. There was a nurse who was caring for him and while he lost his father and his grandfather, there was a nurse who was charged to care for him and the nurse who was charged to care for him knew that his life was in danger and so she took him and tried to get him to safety and rushing to get him to safety. Perhaps her foot slipped and she dropped him.

1:56:44 And the Bible says, not the seminary version of the Bible that is the new revised standard version, but about the King James that I learned at Beth Eden Baptist Church and in Union Missionary Baptist Church, that version of the Bible said he was lame on both his feet. it was lame on both his feet because the person who was charged to care for him dropped him and after the person who cared for him dropped him she picked him up and tried to get him to safety and he was displaced from the place where he grew up he was dislodged from sheltered housing and taken to a place at Lodabar in order to keep him safe this five-year-old by the name of Mephibosheth not cared for like Manny Moses and Mason five-year-old Mephibosheth had conflict between grown folk to leave him without his father. And the person who was supposed to take care of him dropped him. He left him differently able, lame on both his feet and then dislodged and unhoused and unsheltered in the place where he was supposed to grow up.

1:57:48 This five-year-old reminds me of so many five-year-olds that I know who get caught up and left out in the context of adult conflict, political fights, leave them out of the conversation and then leave them to deal with the consequences of the conflict. Strip away from them, those who were supposed to love them, and then those who were charged to care for them in systems, these same systems, public education system, healthcare system, child welfare system, drop them. And after they drop them, then they rush and dislodge them. Don't invest in their shelter. Don't invest in their neighborhood. Don't invest in their housing. And so Mephibosheth finds himself in a precarious position, not because of anything he did, but because of the things that happened around him, because of the political conflict, because of political power, because grown folk couldn't figure out how to make it work. The five-year-old by the name of Mephibosheth found himself by himself living in Lodabar.

1:58:45 Y'all have heard this story before. You come to church on Friday night, then you've heard this on a Sunday morning. I don't have to go too far. The question is, what do we do with it? I didn't know exactly what to do with it. Now I was listening in worship and we really did get into worship. Thank you very much, Brother Jeff, for taking us to worship. We thought we was having a meeting and all of a sudden worship broke out in the middle. In the midst of worship, you invited us to declare who was the king.

1:59:11 Oh, that was really important. That was really important because in the text, because we don't know what's going on in the text because of how we get conflicted in our times. And in our times, there is a would-be king. would be king who has captured the table for his kind. In the text that I've just read, we have this remarkable story of a king who decides once he is fully established, and this is the journey that gets us to this place in the text, he has his offices in place. We have resolved the conflict that was going on in chapter four. We have established David as king. and after we hear just before this passage in the eighth chapter, he has chosen his officers, he has established his cabinet, and in government, the first thing he does after he establishes his cabinet is he begins to think about a covenant. He asks, is there anyone of the house of Saul to whom I may show kindness? And he suggests after showing this kindness that that last person left in the home of his former enemy would be a person who would sit at his table.

2:00:16 And I know that sounds odd to deal with. It sounds awkward for us, for a person with power, a person with privilege, a person in position to actually show kindness. Because we're used to somebody who only cares about their own kind. I like coming home here to Dallas, but frankly, I like getting on a plane going almost anywhere from Washington, D.C. right now. Last 18 months been kind of hard to hang out in that place, even doing the work that we do, trying to advocate on behalf of children, because there's one who is abusing power for his cronies. I've been trying to get out of there all summer, Brother Edwin. I've been going places. I've been in Charlotte. I've been in Little Rock. I've been on Martha's Vineyard. I wasn't there just to hang out y'all I was doing some work I was doing some work I was doing some work everywhere trying to wrestle with what has been going on and going to our freedom schools and in June while I was headed to Little Rock I heard the news that we had made for the first time in global history a trillionaire dude by the name of Musk y'all might remember became a trillionaire by embedding with the would be king into the government last year he embedded into the government and said we didn't have no money said we didn't have no money to take care of your nieces your nephews to go to school started dismantling the department of education while making sure that the government contracts for defense and intellectual property that he needed to invest in SpaceX got their contracts so they got their contracts because he sat at the king's table embedded himself snatched stuff from you in order to give it to himself the next year he comes back to SpaceX takes it public, makes people believe that they can be rich like him so they buy a portion of what he is selling that they have already paid for with their taxes that gave him the government contracts. He has set a table for his own cronies.

2:02:12 This king only cares about his own kind. That wasn't enough in July. I was leaving Tennessee down to Alex Haley Farm and that story hit in June but then in July we found out that the net worth of the would-be king has gone up by two billion dollars in 18 months. somehow an office where you're supposed to shield yourself from aggrandizing yourself where you're supposed to use it to take care of others became a platform to make a dude who lied about being a billionaire into a billionaire maybe I missed it if I could preach like Freddie Haynes these two dudes took the table of governance from us, used it, exploited it, extracted resources that we used to pay for in our taxes, and then they became the billionaires, the trillionaire that they tell you you can be in a capitalist economy if you work hard enough.

2:03:18 And I don't know about you, but these Negroes, I'm sorry, I'm using Negro liberally. They don't work that much harder than me. A would-be king has captured the table for his kind, made his people rich, made himself rich, taking planes for himself, hiding from the people, snatching resources out of the government. All the while, the call of the king, as we know it, is to care for the community.

2:03:45 I'm not just talking about David. There's somebody else who said the government shall be on his shoulders. David and Mephibosheth in the text show us what a king is supposed to do to experience the king's kindness is to experience the support of the state the social safety net that catches you when you fall equal protection under the law culturally relevant fully funded public education affordable housing to shelter your family the healing touch of quality health care free and fair election to express the will of the community and the people livable wages so that you might access the accessible jobs and provide the dignity of work. A child welfare system that keeps families whole and together and protects black and brown children from neglect. The king's kindness is the support of the state. This is the privilege of governance in a democracy. The will of governance is the work of the people.

2:04:46 In other words, you get to determine. You get to determine. We get to determine who sits at the king's table. The power of governance is the point of elections. It's a justice revival, right? Okay, just checking. I want to make sure I brought the right sermon. The power to govern is the point and the purpose of the election. The question is, the election question is a question of the king's kindness. is there anyone of the house of Saul is there a Mephibosheth is there many of Moses amazes and is there a little black boy somewhere to whom I may show kindness is there a child whose parents have been taken by grown-up conflict and war maybe even overseas is there a child who's been dropped by the health care system because they took a trillion dollars out of it with one fell swoop after these fools had the nerve to have a prayer session outside?

2:05:50 Is there a differently able or child who's lame on both their feet, who's losing access to the supports of school because they have snatched the HHS, the health and human services department and taken the supports away from them? Is there an unhoused child who's been displaced from their home because we've not invested in the housing trust fund?

2:06:13 Is there? A Mephibosheth in Oak Cliff to whom you might show kindness. Is there one in South Dallas, East Dallas, Bontan? Is there a Mephibosheth hanging out in Deep Ellum because they ain't got no other place to go? Is there a Mephibosheth, a Manny, a Moses, a Malachi, a Micah in your house to whom you might show kindness? I think there is one. I know there's one. You may not know who they are, but I know there's one for you because there's one in the text. God preserved Mephibosheth in the text. And I think God preserved Mephibosheth, the child, this five-year-old in the text, in order to break David's disgrace.

2:06:59 Mephibosheth literally means to dispel the shame. And truth, it's not just about David. Frankly, both Saul's lineage and David's legacy are at stake in the text. Saul and David are intimately close best friends. David has made, I'm sorry, Jonathan and David are intimately close best friends. David has made a covenant to Jonathan to take care of his family always. If there is one out there who is living below the bar, in Lodabar, if there is anybody in Saul's house, then David's truth and honor is on the line. if there's anybody trying to make sure they pull together enough resources to live when David has suggested that this is the land of opportunity where you can get ahead if you work hard defer gratification and get an education if there is somebody out there who is struggling and trying to make it while I've got all these resources of privilege and power and position while I have declared that I'm going to take care of somebody, then my name is on the line. David's name was on the line. Saul's lineage was on the line. And not only did Saul and Jonathan have the ability to lose both lineage and land, but David could lose respect and relationship. How many of you know that the shame of the nation is when descendants of kings and queens live in squalor? It's the shame of a nation when the descendants of kings and queens are displaced from their homes after the Lord lives and gives them service. It's a shame of a nation when they're dropped by systems that were supposed to take care of them.

2:08:46 It's a shame of a nation to sit in a sanctuary with a sister who checked her voting status a month ago and she was on the roll and checked it last week and she's been dropped. It's a shame of a nation to be broken by people responsible for your healing. The hunger, the poverty, the mental illness and social dislocation of the children of this country is a shame of this nation. It was that great president and son of Africa, Nelson Mandela, who reminded us that there is no keener sense of a society's soul than how it treats its children. And I hate to tell you, but whether you identify with Saul or Jonathan or rock with David, uh the shame that's happening here in the text is the same shame that is here for us with our children and somebody has to break the disgrace. I'm trying to do my best. It's a shame that more than a million children in 22 states have lost access to food in the year since the passage of the one big beautiful bill. It's a shame that HBCU students and parents have lost access to federal loan funding such that it means the difference between starting and actually finishing school.

2:09:58 It's a shame that when we sat in parent orientation earlier this week. We talked about how the HBCU students are going to be swiping in and swiping out of class because they know that the same federal government that has snatched funding before is going to come and try to make them validate that people are actually going to class and if students are be found not going to class, they're going to snatch student aid away from them. It's a shame that they have found that it takes a certain amount of money to make it through so they've placed parent and student loan caps such that you can't take out enough of a loan to make it all the way through school. You can make it maybe through your second year, but then baby, you own your own. It's a shame that the speaker of the house hosted a prayer meeting before heading into the chamber to take a trillion dollars away from healthcare programs. It's a shame that a WWE wrestling executive is dissecting and dismantling the Department of Education without so much as a public hearing or media coverage. It's a shame that 187 billion dollars worth of food has been taken off the tables of our babies in snap cuts. It's a shame that just two weeks ago, the president's administration proposed cuts to the quality standards of Head Start, which is going to effectively abolish the program that we've known as a support for our children since 1965.

2:11:14 It's a shame, but Mephibosheth is still alive. so you can break the disgrace to erase the disgrace is to nurture a child into her freedom when i was two years old when when when friendship west was two years old uh there's this black feminist poet by the name of june jordan who stood on the floor at a convention in 1978 at the children's welfare league of america and she told us that we can actually start this thing over and erase the disgrace. She suggested that children are the ways that the world begins again and again. If you fasten on that concept of their promise you'll have trouble finding anything more awesome and also more extraordinarily exhilarating than the opportunity and or the obligation to nurture a child into their own freedom. Our children need the kindness of government to become the kindness of God.

2:12:16 if this is a Bible study y'all have caught that what happens in the text is that David asked two questions but the question changes the second time he asked it the first time we open up with the text he says is there anyone of the house of Saul to whom I may show kindness for Jonathan's sake the second time he asked the question just a few verses later he said is there anyone once he becomes in whom of the house of Saul of who to whom I may show kindness the kindness of God. David's up to something. David's a unique model of person with privileged position and power. David's reputation and repetition here uh whom I may show kind of the kindness of God. In this case, David understands the responsibility uh and the responsible use of his authority. He understands what to do with his relative privilege. He understands how to use his position. His responsibility as the king, as one who has access and authority over government, the same way that we as an elected body of citizens have access and authority over government. His job is to turn the kindness of governance and the kindness of government into the kindness of God. And that's and that's and that's what he does.

2:13:36 What he does is he changes the kindness of government focused on himself, the king's kindness into the kindness of God. The question is if this is an election question, how he do that? And a better question is how can we can we change in this moment if this is not the end, brother Jeffrey, if we're going to greater, if this is not what God has in the end, if God actually has something better for children. What is our responsible agency and authority to change the kindness of government into the kindness of God? I'm glad you asked. You didn't really ask, but I asked myself, so I'm going to answer myself.

2:14:20 First, I think the text suggests to us that the first thing we've got to do is we've got to decide that covenants count. We've got to decide that covenants count. This text is about one of my favorite words. My favorite words in the Bible is in Hebrew is hesed. It's about loyalty and steadfast love that is demonstrated in active kindness. Most times we hear about hesed, this steadfast love. We hear about God. God is experiencing. God is sharing God's steadfast love with us. What we see here is that when he gets in authority, when he gets in power, when he gets in privilege, when he gets to move to the county, when he gets to live on the cul-de-sac, when he gets to move out of the old hood, when he gets to from South Dallas to Oak Cliff, from Oak Cliff out to Addison. When he gets to the first thing he does when he gets established is remember the promise he made to the ancestor the covenant he made with his friend.

2:15:22 What is it that I owe the ancestor who came before me and was a friend to me even in the face of difficulty for himself and here 63 years later? We ought to ask ourselves the question, what is our responsibility to the covenant of those who gathered there on that mall 63 years ago today, not just in order to commemorate a thing, but to demonstrate and dare to risk their lives for a thing. What is my responsibility to those who have come before? What? And we've got to decide that a covenant counts. Covenant goes both ways. They poured into us before they could see us. They sacrificed for us before we saw the world. They knew us before we discovered America. They gave us something and we owe them something. The first thing David decides is that my covenant with Jonathan counts.

2:16:25 And we've got to make that same decision. I say this and I declare it but I'm deciding about it. Can I declare something that I'm deciding about? I told my friend Tracy earlier today, I've been wrestling with whether our commemorations have become idols and they're a problem. I'm not ready to say we shouldn't do them but I'm concerned that we do them and think we doing something because the covenant was not to redo what I did. The covenant was not to play king. The covenant was to take on the challenges. The covenant was not to take a place beneath Lincoln on the mall. The covenant was to take a place in a dirty and cold jail cell as one demonstrates because one puts oneself on the line. I'm beginning to wonder whether our memorials matter or whether they're making us feel good about our middle class status.

2:17:21 We got to decide. We got to decide that covenants count. We got to decide that promises with those who have gone before matter to us. And we got to decide to the people who come around church only when, you know, in the fall in the election time. We got to decide that their covenants count too.

2:17:45 Because if we have steadfast and enduring love for the ancestors who won voting rights for us 63 years ago in the March on Washington, then we'll show kindness to the children impacted by the big beautiful bill 63 years later. We got to decide that covenants count. The second thing we got to determine is that compassion counts. the most suspicious read of this text is that David is not showing kindness what David is doing is watching his back I know y'all hear it like this in church just hang out with me for a second there is a read of this text Bruce Burek and others lay out that is a facetious maybe a negative read of the text it says that what David is actually asking is there anybody around who might come for the throne and maybe have a right to it because they can demonstrate connection to Saul who was the first king even though he was a different kind of king if you said the text Saul was tall but that's all and this suspicious read of the text suggests that what David is doing is bringing Mephibosheth close putting him at the table so he could watch him. That what he's doing is not nurturing care. It's rather house arrest. And that political expedience, it's easy to read this as political expediency because that's the kind of politics we used to. We used to people with privileged position and authority engaging to do things only in their interest. And we have grown up, been nurturing in the western society where we have decided that these false binaries are what we have to lean into so we choose between is he showing compassion or is he engaging in political expedience and because most politics we see operate with this suspicious kind of way we decide oh he just

2:19:51 looking out for himself i know that anyway i heard the preach before but that's that's where y'all be thinking about it that's where y'all be thinking about it and so and so i want to offer i want to offer a middle way. Can we do this? The reason why we do that is because we have not done the work to reward compassion and to make compassion politically expedient.

2:20:14 What if you knew you could stand powerfully on a platform for the poor and still get elected to the presidency? What if you know you can hang out with the people on the ground and you could still get elected to be the governor? What if you could run for the Senate knowing that you really are there for the people who are sick? What if you could declare even in the great republic? Yep, I'm here. I'm here and I've been here long enough to know that we declare it as a republic, the great republic of Texas. That you can actually be for the marginalized and you can get elected mayor. What if it wasn't a choice between compassion and political expedience. I gotta tell you, if it's not a choice, but the only way we can make it not a choice between compassion and political expedience is to make sure we show up and show out to lift up people who are compassionate, who spend time with people who actually go to classrooms when there are no cameras, to lift up people who go to hospital rooms when nobody is trying to tweet it and nobody is trying to text it and nobody's trying to share it on Instagram. If we actually walk with people who love Christ and lived Christ and live compassion when they were not in a campaign season. If we could make compassion politically expedient, then we would be able to show the kindness of God through the kindness of government.

2:21:41 We David had no interest, some would say, in the house of Saul to make claims on the throne, but he honored the covenant of friendship that he made with Jonathan and acted with Hesed, steadfast love. We need not apologize for pursuing or supporting others in appropriate political goals but the measure I say that right here we need not apologize let me say that again at at friendship West in 2026 we need not apologize for pursuing or supporting others in appropriate political goals but the measure of our actions in pursuit of political ends must be the terms of values such as those honored by David in this story loyalty, respect, steadfast love, the well-being of others. We got to decide that covenants count. We got to determine that compassion counts and then finally we got to stand up and be counted.

2:22:42 because this is our responsibility. I know y'all ready to go. It's Friday night. This text is not just about Melchizedek. I'm sorry, not Melchizedek. That's the other long M. It ain't about him either. It's not just about Mephibosheth. It ain't just about Mason. It ain't just about man. It ain't just about Moses. I'm an O'Cliff. I can say this text about me. This story is about every single day of my life. Because I've been eating at the king's table.

2:23:27 I don't think I'm by myself. I think there's some folk in here who maybe on a Friday when it's not crowded like a Sunday morning can actually suggest that there have been times that the kindness of God shown to us by people who have accepted responsible agency and authority in our community has made our day a little better. Made our time a little brighter. Made our path a little straighter. This text isn't just about somebody far off, but this text is about those of us in this very room. This text is about being able to share and affirm that somebody came before to open a door for us. because somebody came before and they were a friend to us we got a responsibility to the child who's living below the bar right now And the question becomes at a justice revival whether we're willing to stand and be counted. Be counted when it's time to vote. Be counted when it's time to volunteer. Be counted when it's time to lift up our voice.

2:24:31 Are we willing to be counted? Be counted when they're looking for poll workers. Be counted when they're looking for people to drive people to the polls. Be counted when it's time to make sure that our vote is in. Are we willing to be counted? counted. Be counted at the juster of revival and then be counted as one registered voter on Sunday morning. Are we willing to stand and be counted? Because this text is not just about not just about all of these hymns. It's about me. Stairfast love of the Lord never ceases. This text is not just about Mephibosheth. It ain't just about Manny, Moses, and Mason. It's not just about me. This text is not just about the figure who gets the kindness, but it's about the one who's showing kindness. This text ain't about David. This text is about our God. I've eaten at God's table all my life. Provided for me when a system dropped me.

2:25:28 When the people who were trying to take care of me, doing the best they could, stumbled over circumstances that somebody put in the road for them. Had me displaced and dislodged at the most critical points in my life. Took away two men that I deeply loved both in Old Cliff near Lancaster and Ledbetter. No, not my father and my grandfather, but my brother and my uncle. This text is about me. I've eaten at the king's table, cared for every day of my life, and now I have responsibility to be kind to someone else. I know we don't see that kind of kindness anymore. We don't see that kind of courage anymore. We see people who want to engage and take pictures like they protest and even when they really not. We see people want to take care of themselves rather than taking care of others. Uh but I invite you to join me to take a walk not far from here on Wheatland. Walk up the road, make our way to camp wisdom and poke and let's go back. I don't want to just imagine that we're in front of the White House and imagine we're in front of that courthouse. Imagine we're in front of the Congress. I want to imagine we're in front of that blue sign with the yellow letters. And while we've not seen this kind of kindness and this kind of courage in recent years, if we rewind, we might be able to be the kind of kind we need in this moment. Be kind. Rewind to the times when people were willing to go to jail for the neighbors. Be kind. Rewind to the times we were willing to sacrifice for somebody other than ourselves. Be kind. Rewind to the times we were willing to fill up the jails because we knew that it was more than about our bank account, our 501, our 401ks, or our in our bank accounts, it was actually about making sure we made a way for someone who came after us. Be kind. Rewind and